things that explode

I always assumed that if and when my life exploded I would be aware of it exactly at the time that it happened. But, ya know, I am finding that exploding lives are sort of like the eye of a tornado. Yep, all this stuff is spinning around and in the middle is me and I'm just doing the stuff I do, like breathing and working and I wonder why it is so hard to do the daily stuff but I never see the storm until it is over. I suspect that this is some sort of pain management technique. Somehow, it allows me to continue to live my daily life while processing painful or difficult information in some other part of my brain other than the part that deals with bills and walking the dog and making food. But don't be fooled by the seeming normalcy. In some part of my brain and body things are going on. I know this because time after time difficult things come to me fully formed and ready to be looked at and dealt with. This process is not for the ordinary difficult stuff of life, like people one doesn't want to really spend time with but who seem to want to spend time with me anyway. How do I tell them *no* and not feel like a really snobby heel? Difficult, yes. Needing to be processed in some inaccessible region of the brain, no. No, this process is for the stuff that is too painful to look at right away, all at once. The stuff that has to be chewed on like cud. Sometimes for years. I am never totally unaware that it is there. No, I know about it. I just can't really DO anything with it until is gestates. Like some of the stuff that came up in that Iron Pentacle class a few years back. It just needed time to gestate. And the nice thing is that whereever it goes while it is gestating, the pain of it is reduced to something that I can live with. But I do have a REALLY high tolerance for pain. Now I get to take it all out and look at it. I think I can process it now. I can acknowledge th pain without a panic attack. Unlike the first time.
This, I believe, is Step Seven. It is part of humility A.A. style and being who I am in all my parts. The tricky bit is that we don't know what some of those parts are until we meet them. But part of the process of Step Seven is learning to meet those parts and not panic; but to reach for them knowing that we are not alone. It really is easier to reach for them than to run from them kicking and screaming. They'll make themselves known anyway. Might as well be honest, openminded, and willing.